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Culture/Technology Level
The Sime~Gen universe takes about 100 years to equal 50 years of our progress, but the scale slides as information explosion later takes over. (Source: Index card file: JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG -- March 11, 1977) Rimon Farris's time (-533 Unity): level of 1800's era, since much technology is never lost. Candlemaking, oil lamps (but not from petroleum), paper and ink. Calligraphy, (no metal typewriters) sophisticated agricultural methodology: irrigation, fertilization, follow plowing patterns, crop rotation. Harness makers, traders, entertainers, shop owners, bars. Logging, river pilots and barges, longshoremen, itinerant preachers, patent medicine, Gen-trade. Indentured servants: "owned" -- would not have debtor's prisons as you wouldn't support an unproductive Sime on Kills -- in hard times, some renSimes couldn't pay for their Kills, or an out-Territory Gen raid destroyed their business, etc. -- they might be "sold" at some sort of government auction. Klyd Farris's time (-15 Unity): "Old West" circa 1860, without railroad and telegraph. After Unity, the inter-mingling of Sime and Gen produces an explosion of technology, innovation, industry and science. Where Sime and Gen meet, creativity happens. So the creativity that resided only in the Householdings suddenly erupts everywhere there is intermingling. Health improves, longevity improves, schooling improves, and progress results. Digen Farris's time (113-232 Unity): 1900-1920's: Civilized in big city. Frontier and rough outback. Metal poor (no railroads on metal rails or with metal engines or telegraph with copper wire); selyn power just coming into use, some in automobile usages (pretty makeshift) and commercially in the slideroads that are ceramic composit ribbons with a selyn-powered train that is suspended above the ribbon (visualize maglev). . Metal: Some can be recovered from the Ancients (by application of immense and wasteful amounts of selyn power), but MOST we are using today is lost due to entropy -- it takes more energy to get it back than it is worth when there are cheaper and better composit materials. After Digen's time, discover more efficient ways to use selyn power to refine metal and to mine some sites not even economic today. Then they can build space roving economy and mine asteroid belt, but by then composits rule for space ship hulls and so on. Even so, metal is EXPENSIVE -- mark of success and opulence. In Digen's time, metal is saved for uses where nothing else would do. (Jacqueline comments dated April 20, 1977) Cars are wood, plastic and refractories, with bare amounts of metal, which is recycled. Plastics beginning development around Rimon's time or soon after. "Bathtub sized lots made primarily from soybeans and the like." Klyd's time: Plastics are fairly common but a Householding product juncts tend to shun. Zeor is the biggest source of materials science and commercial application that leads them to become among the foremost in selyn battery component production. (Source: Index card file, THE CHANNEL'S EXEMPTION -- http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/ce.html -- Technology) Porta-tents: a thin film of shiny material on one side, black on the other, powered by a small selyn battery. Both self cooling and very efficient heat pump. Fire-strikers: A wand that is selyn-powered Vibro-blade: A selyn-powered cutting tool Waldo Starship and lifeboat Emergency beacon (Source: Index card file, HOUSE OF ZEOR -- Sime Chemistry) (1) sheets of flexible transparent "dazzlng" plastic material to make greenhouses . Much like the same stuff put around Raider cages. (2) Heat sealing substance on message tube. Chemical would flame if improperly opened. (3) Various drugs: Truth drugs, fertility drugs, fear gas and tranquilizers. (4) Road building material --- a strange powdery substance over a gravel base. Seemed to dry quickly and provided good footing for horses while not trapping wagon wheels. (5) Ink and furniture polish. (6) Photography (7) Some kind of rust resistor. No sign of rust in cage structures. (Source: Index card file. UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER -- Third Draft -- Technology) A light coverlet containing a gossamer lacing of insulation which would help cut any sudden changes in the ambient nager which could wake a patient. (Source: Index card file. SIME SURGEON http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/surgeon/SURGEON1.html -- Technology) Way down in Sime Center's sub-basement lay the power station that provided light, heat, and telephone service to the Gen half of Westfield. Industrial chemicals. Selyn conductive used in modern industrial storage and transmission devices such as slideroad trains. (Source: Index card file. FIRST CHANNEL -- Technology) Shower with hot and cold water at Farris Genfarm. Striker to light fire while camping. Gen animal trap (for bears, wolves, and other fur-bearers) Irrigation ditch, fine pipe and reservoir on Genfarm. (Source: Index card file. UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER -- Technology) Calculating instruments in Controller's office. Signal button and remote latch on door in deferment suite -- the door signal "ticks." Light on roll board for the staff of Sime Center. Pager/Public Address system. Published or posted daily schedule of channel arrivals (Asquith by train). Skip Ozik's dim, shaded room: To left, a wetbench where iinstant lab analyses could be done. Far corner, the bed, with paraphenalia of treatment room. Right, contour lounge for transfers. Adjacent library/sitting room -- light from its windows. Watches. Flying available, but perhaps unsafe and not widely used. Rior: Riding horses, and mule-drawn wagons. Scythes used to harvest wheat, lab, chemicals to make weapons, sink, pump. Heavy crystal oil lamp. Large kiln, rifles. (Source: Index card file. UNTO ZEOR, FOREVER -- Technology and culture) Slideroad train, "hotwire," --- 9-way conference on the hotwire, telephone (punch-button), children's books, professional journal (Surgeon's Society Journal), trucks --- truck unit, testing for changeover, rural area. X-ray, antibiotics, professional athletics ("a professional ballplayer"), heated tramsfer lounge, selyn batteries (packing plant in the third sub-basement of the Sime Center). Small selyn-glow lamp, ambulance, radio, thermal bottle, press syndicate, automaton completing a program, telegram, cryogenics ("liquid nitrogen"). Slinky spring toys, statues, awards, plaques, certificates in the Controller's office. Enormous old-fashioned record player, elevator, horror stories, kitten (as a pet). Gens celebrate birthdays -- they don't in-Territory, but neither do they tell out-Territory Gens about it. Out-Territory Gens held that crying was for children and shameful for adults. One of the biggest barriers to out-Territory Gens aspiring to become Donors.